You are encouraged to familiarise yourself with its setup and parser functions before editing the template. If your edit causes unexpected problems, please undo it quickly, as this template may appear on a large number of pages.
Remember that you can conduct experiments, and should test all improvements, in either the general Template sandbox or your user space before changing anything here.

The Template:Drugbox provides a consistent layout for drug articles and an interface to other sources that provide information about the drug. It can be used for single drugs, combination products (see #Combination products), monoclonal antibodies (see #Monoclonal antibody drugs) and vaccines (see #Vaccines). Don't worry about trying to fill in all the fields – even specifying just one or two can be useful.

OR alternatively: use Diberri's excellent Wikipedia template filling tool which will generate a populated template to copy & paste into an article if given a DrugBank ID number (which may be obtained from DrugBank search). Please select for Fill template vertically, but as Wikipedia is a general encyclopedia, most drugs do not warrant Show extended fields.

Set the parameter type=combo. This form of the drugbox uses a different subset of parameters. For drug-combinations, at least two components must be defined, with optional 3rd or 4th components. For each component:

define its name (which will be automatically wikilinked)

and the class of agent it belongs to but this usually needs manual wikilinking, e.g. for Seretide:

Generally combination articles will not need to display the molecular images of its constituents (the relevant specific articles would have the images). It disables all Chemical & Pharmacology parameters (which describe properties of single drug items). These redundant disabled parameters are best not included in the template calling, so use the following abridged forms of the template:

None of the fields are obligatory. DrugBank does not include every known drug and likewise protein binding may not be applicable to the drug (e.g. if only ever applied externally), so if these fields are not defined then their row is not shown.

Don't worry about getting all the fields — just do your best, and if you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to ask at Template talk:Drugbox.

name – optional parameter to invoke a special use template (a separate Template:Drugbox/name page is created to store the template which is then transcluded into the drug article, view/discuss/edit button are displayed at top of drugbox) Not currently used

drug_name – an optional parameter that provides a title for the drugbox

You can use the image to provide an illustration. These fields are optional, but it is helpful to provide an image if you can find one. Of course most images on the internet are copyrighted.

You may specify the image name directly, else the template defaults to trying to use File:PAGENAME.png, where PAGENAME is the name of the drug article being written.

The alt parameter specifies the alt text for the image, used by visually impaired readers. See WP:ALT.

There is also an optional width parameter you can add for the image. If your picture is far too big, then add a new line and specify a custom width like this:

| image = Aspirin.png
| width = 325

When no width parameter is specified, it defaults to a width of 220.

Occasionally a second image might be added to show the chemical structure in a different format. Use the optional image2 parameter for this. Hence the Paracetamol article uses:

| image = Paracetamol-skeletal.png
| image2 = Paracetamol-3D.png

An alt2 parameter specifies the alt text for the second image. image2 generally uses the same width settings as the first image, i.e. as defined by width otherwise a default value of 220. A specific width2 may though be applied.

Pregnancy Categorisation has been previously declared using just the pregnancy_category parameter with a variety of markup styles used to indicate various countries and their classifications. Alternatively pregnancy_AU and pregnancy_US may be set to the fixed categories. For Australia values permitted are: A, B1, B2, B3, C, D or X (note if just set to 'B' then B? is shown). For US values permitted are: A, B, C, D or X.

Note the UK does not have official designated categorisations, but has both a variety of standard phrases with explanatory qualifications, plus many individual descriptions. pregnancy_category may still be used with the country-specific parameters as it is appended afterwards, allowing backwards compatibility for articles that only define this parameter, or for the future with free-text of other information.

Legal status has been previously declared using just the legal_status parameter with a variety of markup styles used to indicate various countries and their classifications. Alternatively legal_AU, legal_CA, legal_UK and legal_US may be set to the fixed options in the table hereafter. The template will ensure the categorisation is shown correctly capitalised, use Unicode Rx symbol and add a linked 2-letter country code as per WP:MOS. legal_status may still be used with the country-specific parameters as it is appended afterwards, allowing backwards compatibility for articles that only define this parameter, or for the future with free-text of other information.

Note: if a drug is restricted everywhere to prescription-only, please set legal_status = Rx-only rather than similarly define for each and every country ('Rx-only' is specifically recognised by legal_status and shows as ℞ Prescription only)

An optional parameter of Dependence liability allows opioids or benzodiazepines to be flagged with the risk of becoming dependent upon them, although in many cases this may be somewhat subjective. Drugs should be rated as Low, Medium, High or Extremely high:

The FDA "Label Information" and the EMA "Product Information", where available, are very detailed. There is material aimed at the professional and also plain-English consumer information. These are excellent reliable source for article information but also contains much that makes it a worthwhile "External link" since there is no way one can include all the info. Both sites work using of the brand name of the drug but the FDA site also allows searches with the generic name (active ingredient), which lists generic variants where they are licensed.

Where items are composed of more than one word, licence_US requires an underscore '_' in place of any spaces; e.g. Acyclovir_Sodium.

More patient friendly than the FDA's pages is Daily Med which reproduces the same details. The DailyMedID parameter, where specified, is shown in preference to the licence_US direct FDA link. Daily Med entries may be located at Search By Drug Name, e.g. for Furosemide

These parameters should be filled in because they contain important inforamtion about a drug. Use wikilinks for values that the general reader might not understand (e. g. hepatic, CYP3A4, intraperitoneal).

The DrugBank primary accession number (consisting of a 2 letter prefix (DB) and a 5 number suffix). Secondary accession numbers with a 4 letter suffix (APRD, EXPT, BIOD, NUTR) should not normally be used.

Additional ATC or CAS codes may be included with the optional ATC_supplemental & CAS_supplement parameter as a comma-separated lists. CAS or ATC templates may be used to have these additional codes link to the relevant databases:

Veterinary drugs are placed in a slightly different classification system, ATCvet. The code may be specified as ATCvet by setting the parameter ATCvet to 'yes'. Do not include the leading 'Q' in ATC_prefix:

This is an entirely optional section, and for most drugs is not helpful to the wider readership. Only include if information of particular interest for the drug as to its chemical propersites (e.g. in its manufacture or as an important chemical in its own right, e.g. Aspirin). If any of the following optional parameters are defined then a new section header of 'Physical data' is shown.